Come Tomorrow

In I walked through the gilded gates,

The lawn was green, and huge.

The cobbled path tracing its way

From the gilded gates to the cars.

It wasn’t my first time.

It wasn't my second, either.

Countless times, I had knocked the door,

To no avail, but to despair.

“Child, here I am, your Mother is here”,

I would say. But my tot,

remembers me not.

Neither do they care for me,

For if they did,

Wouldn’t they be in my warm embrace?

Go to the big house

And knock the door,

This I did, everyday.

For all I wanted, was a glimpse,

Of my little kid, at play.

Countless times, I walked in,

Knocked, and asked, to be let in.

But “Come tomorrow”, was all I heard,

Everyday.

Come tomorrow, she would say,

She, who was not the mother.

And faithfully, I did, everyday,

For what if I saw them, today?

In, I walked, but stopped at the door,

For there was a sign, that read,

“Naale baa,”, come tomorrow,

The cardboard sign said.

And to this day,

Some twenty years away,

I walk in through those gilded doors,

At dusk,

To read the faded cardboard sign

that would always say,

Naale Baa,

Come tomorrow.

Come Tomorrow (originally in Kannada, Nale Ba), is a popular folk legend, in some parts of Karnataka, especially in rural Bengaluru, that took root in the '90s. Villagers wrote the phrase on walls and doors of their homes to deter the entry of a malevolent spirit who would speak in the voices of one's kin, but if the door were opened, death was imminent. The phrase Nale Ba was the only way the spirit's resolve could be deterred, for the day.

This is my take on the legend, but from the perspective of the spirit.

- JK